Getting Connected - Web sites geared toward African American culture

An African-American Guide to Surfing the Internet

So, you want to "surf the Net," do you? You want to find out exactly what those home pages you keep reading about look like. And you want to download information from the World Wide Web to your personal computer. Well, there is no need for you to spend countless hours searching for Web sites offering black culture: I've done the work for you. Below is a sample of the many Web sites on line that focus on our history, culture, professional organizations, businesses, statistics, books, art and more. Type in the addresses exactly as printed, and be sure to browse once you reach one home page, for most likely it will provide links to others. Discover the world!

Afrinet http://www.afrinet.net Contains an art gallery, employment information, a collective of businesses and news.

African American Interest http://www.earthlink.net/~anthony/ african.html Contains a listing of African-American home pages.

Afro America http://www.afroam.org Contains employment information, a collection of African-American history and more.

AFROAM-L http://www.qualcomm.com/users/ gnash/AFROAM-L.html Some chitchat takes place here, but mostly it's a site where scholars, business people and other Internet users exchange electronic mail on news items concerning issues related to black society in the United States.

Amistad Research Center http://www.arc.tulane.edu With more than 10 million documents, the Amistad Research Center is acknowledged as the nation's largest independent African-American archives. Its Web site contains a general description of the center, its history and its art and manuscript holdings, as well as images from its African and African-American art collections.

CNN Interactive http://www3.cnn.com/ The daily news, free of charge.

Federal Government Resources on the Web http://www.lib.umich.edu/ libhome/Documents.center/ federal.html Contains statistic, biographies of members of Congress and the Supreme Court, as well as information on politics, government publications and more.

Historically Black Colleges and Universities and African Universities http://www.usbol.com/usbol/ research/hbcu.html Contains a listing of and information on these institutions.

Library of Congress http://lcweb.loc.gov/homepage/ lchp.html Contains a treasure chest of goodies, such as a listing of library events and, of course, congressional information. You can also gain access to federal and state government information here.

Million Man March http://www-cgi.cnn.com/US/9510/ megamarch/march.html Contains transcripts of President Clinton's speech on race relations and Minister Farrakhan's Million Man March speech, along with recorded tidbits in Farrakhan's own voice.

National Brotherhood of Skiers http://www.nbs.org/ Contains listings of ski clubs and resorts by region, its youth race teams, its members with home pages, and its events.

National Urban League http://www.nul.org/ With components such as a library under construction, this site contains information on the NUL, its history and special events.

US Black On-Line http://www.usbol.com/ The first African-American-owned and -operated nationwide Internet access provider, this Web site has information on science, sports, finance and entertainment, as well as products on sale.

Web Diva's Info Center http://www.afrinet.net/~hallh/ Designed and developed by a sister, this impressive Web site has information on history, professional organizations, statistics and books, as well as details on how to create your own home page.

Martha C. Brown is a freelance writer in Hampton, Va., and a member of American Visions' African-American Culture and Arts Forum on CompuServe. Her e-mail address is 75561.2421 @compuserve. com. Her last article for American Visions, "Shopping On-Line, "appeared in the December/January 1996 issue.

RELATED ARTICLE: Go Afro

Who makes you tingle? What writer challenges your intellect? Whose music gives you chills? When you finally meet him or her, will you find the words to express your devotion?

There is beauty in being able to talk to your favorite personalities--including writers, musicians, filmmakers, actors, artists and athletes--from the comfort of your home; there's no need to look presentable, trudge through the rain, pay to park or book a babysitter. Simply pull up a chair to your PC and log into the African-American Culture and Arts Forum, sponsored by American Visions magazine.

You may have missed Mario and Melvin Van Peebles and Bertice Berry, but not to worry. The coming month will introduce you to Joe Frazier, Dr. Dre and Ntozake Shange, as well as authors Spencie Love and Connie Briscoe, filmmaker Ayoka Chenzira and more.

Recently, Roberto Santiago, the editor of Boricuas: Influential Puerto Rican Writings [see Books, page 26], came on line to discuss racial identity, a popular topic in the forum. Until you join us and ask your own burning question, you can read the following excerpt from the conversation with Santiago, where members asked theirs.

Roberto Santiago: Boricua [literally, "brave lord"; colloquially, "brother"] is a word that I grew up with. I never knew what it meant until I started to learn about the history of my people. Most people I knew had no idea what the word meant, although it was used almost every day.

When I grew up, I was confused about my racial identity, my history, my place in society. Racially, my mother is very dark-skinned, and my father is very fair-skinned, so when I was growing up, although I knew I was both black and Puerto Rican. I was told by others that I could only be one. Puerto Ricans would say that I may "look black" but that I was not: I was Puerto Rican. My African-American friends would say the same thing. So I have to give credit to the racist white boys I went to school with. They would call me a spic and a nigger. They had no trouble seeing me as both.

Julie: So you really could not identify with either ethnic group?

Roberto Santiago: No, I identified with both groups, but I often saw myself as an outsider to both groups, struggling to get in. The problem was that both Puerto Ricans and African Americans saw "blackness" as a North American phenomenon. They felt when you said "black," you meant "African American." Neither knew their history, that "blackness" means having African ancestry, that you can be from Trinidad, Haiti. Cuba, Panama, Puerto Rico. Ghana--even Atlanta--and still be "black."

In my book, Boricuas, I have a chapter that deals with racial identity. It is the most popular chapter{

Julie: Whose writing/words affected you the most as you were growing up?

Roberto Santiago: When I read writing about my own experience, I started to read more. Once I started to read more about my people, written by my people, I appreciated the written word even more. Children will devour literature once they can relate to it. Once I saw that my people wrote drama, fiction, essays, journalism--and that the writing impacted my soul--I fell in love with reading. By the time I was in high school, I could be moved equally by reading Malcolm X, Che Guevara. John Steinbeck or Virginia Woolf.

Boricuas was written as a response to the fact that too many of our people did not know who they were. It is the kind of book that I wish were around when I was a kid.

Anomalous: I can identify with your experience. As an African American/Puerto Rican who speaks very little Spanish and is not fully comfortable in either culture, I often feel at a loss. Same as yourself, writing was a release. How else did you cope with your situation?

Roberto Santiago: How did I cope? Through pain. I found myself always talking to people, arguing with them. What pained me more was that my own people (Puerto Ricans and African Americans) could not accept my blackness. The white folks always did; they never had any problems with seeing me as both. I found that my own people did not understand blackness. Puerto Ricans often harbored racial self-hatred. To them, to be black was to be bad. So, no matter how dark-skinned they were, they were not black.

Everett Brown: What do you mean when you refer to "blackness as a universal phenomenon"?

Roberto Santiago: I mean that we often do not see how powerful we are. I realized during the past few years of lecturing and writing that we, as people of color. take over the job the racist laid out by not embracing the beauty and the power of our African roots, of our color, and how that manifests itself in different forms. The African diaspora created so many versions of "black" that we do not embrace. I argue that once we embrace these various forms of "blackness" as one--man, we will have a power base that no one can handle.

Conferences are just one exciting feature of the African-American Culture and Arts Forum. We also offer chat rooms, lively message sections, and libraries chock-full of graphic and text files relevant to the black experience. If you subscribe to CompuServe, pay us a visit (GO AFRO). If you'd like to become a member, call CompuServe at (800) 524-3388 and ask for representative No. 554.

COPYRIGHT 1996 Heritage Information Holdings, Inc.
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